Updated: The tip was accurate, but the Cleveland Plain Dealer got the story out first. See update after background.

Okay, that's what we have at the moment.

Yesterday's majority decision, penned by former Ohio Solicitor Jeffrey Sutton, said, "Nothing about this case, or the relief (Ohio Republicans, who brought the suit) seek will allow them to prevent a single voter from casting a ballot in the November election ...

"At most, the identification of a mismatch allows a county board to investigate whether the mismatch has a legitimate explanation (say, a recent change of address)."

The practical effect, Sutton wrote, may be to require the voter in question to cast a provisional ballot, when elections officials would determine the validity of the registration and thus the vote.

In a statement late last night, Brunner, a Democrat, called it "essential" that voters whose registration information matches either the motor vehicle or Social Security records "are left inviolate to vote a regular ballot on or before Election Day."

If it matches neither, she wants county elections workers to handle "prompt communication to allow them to assist with resolving discrepancies, which, in many cases are not due to any fault of the voters."

"It is imperative that voters not be disenfranchised because of federal government red tape, misstated technical information or glitches in databases beyond the control of voters or the secretary of state."

But what's left unsaid is whether voters could be disenfranchised at all and how closely the questioned registrations should be examined for fraud. That's because even when county elections officials get access to the list of mismatched registrations, exactly what they are to do with it remains a mystery.

Brunner doesn't want to allow the local boards to investigate at all. So she presents them with a fait accompli by refusing to tell them which registrations warrant investigation.

The court ordered her to comply by Friday. She protests she can't and it will have to wait until Monday.

I don't blame her for playing for time.

I have a tip which I don't wish to out yet until I have more confidence in it. The tip concerns the number of likely fraudulent registrations she's refused to divulge to the local boards of elections, effectively forcing them to accept votes made by these unmatchable registrations due to her concealing their likely fraudulence.

If she doesn't tell them, they can't strike the registrations.

The number is large. Not million large. But still large.

And she's been sitting on them. She's been deliberately failing to inform the local boards of elections these registrations simply do not match any information from DMV records, Social Security records, property records, tax records.

They do not check out. There is no particular reason to believe they're real. Especially considering all the fake registrations already submitted by ACORN caught by the local boards for being transparently fake.

Whatever the number is -- even if it's smallish -- she has nothing but corrupt purposes for failing to comply with state law and inform local boards of the problems.

My tip, however, says it's not smallish at all.

UPDATE: 200 fucking thousand unmatchable registrations concealed.

More than 200,000 Ohioans who registered to vote this year for the first time or updated their voting information since Jan. 1 could be affected by the latest court ruling requiring the state to set up a new registration verification system by Friday, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said.

Brunner said she would comply with the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling late Tuesday but said she is deeply concerned that the decision is a veiled attempt at disenfranchising voters.

The court's 9-6 opinion, written by Judge Jeffrey Sutton, suggested that voters whose driver's license number or Social Security number does not exactly match those found on databases maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or Social Security Administration could be required to use provisional ballots instead of conventional ones.

"The thing that concerns me is that Judge Sutton indicated that these mismatched names could be subjected to provisional voting and nowhere in [Help America Vote Act] is that the case. The Help America Vote Act is really not meant to be used to disenfranchise or to help determine voter eligibility," Brunner said in an interview today.

"Essentially that provision of HAVA is basically supposed to maintain voter registration databases," she said. "It is not for determining voter eligibility. The interpretation that seems to be coming from at least that particular judge takes HAVA and uses it as a means to exclude voters from a regular ballot. That is a concern."

The full 6th Circuit's opinion overturned the decision of a three-judge panel at the federal court last week and restored the ruling announced last week by U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith.

Since Jan. 1, Ohio has 666,000 newly registered or updated voters -- all of whom fall under scrutiny by this latest court ruling. Brunner said an initial review found that at least 200,000 of them might have mismatched information. Once the office identifies all of the mismatched voters, Brunner will send the list to the county boards of election where the individuals have registered.

Margin of Bush's victory in Ohio in 2004? 118,457 votes.

200,000 would seem to be more than that.

Reality Check: Brunner is right that some -- perhaps most -- of these registrations will check out, after investigation. In some cases, it could be that the system hasn't yet reflected changes-of-address or so forth.

However, many will turn out to be fraudulent -- and she deliberately concealed the existence of these red flags to deny the local boards of election the opportunity to check for themselves.

How man are real, how many are fake? We don't know -- yet.

And if Jennifer Brunner had had her way, we'd have never even have had an opportunity to check at all.

She didn't want to check into them, and she actively prevented the local boards of election from checking too. Citing -- get this -- "voter disenfranchisement" as her rationale.

Despite the fact that the law compels her to inform the local boards of unmatchable registrants.

Let's say even 3/4s of these turn out legit -- she was hellbent to smuggle the the 50,000 fraudulent ones into the ballot boxes.

Bear in Mind... If you're struck from the rolls and show up to vote, that doesn't mean you lose your vote. You can vote by provisional ballot. The envelope remains sealed until your bona fides can be established. Then, once you've been found to be a legal voter, the envelope is opened and your ballot is counted.

Brunner was fighting to make sure these dodgy/suspect voters never had to prove they were real voters -- she wanted their votes dumped straight into the pile, where no one could later yank them out from. Remember, even if you're a proven fraudulent voter, your votes can't be pulled out of the mix -- because it's secret ballot. Who knows who you voted for? In Bizarro world, it's even possible you voted for McCain ten times.

Brunner was determined to get these suspect -- not necessarily fraudulent, but suspect and requiring investigation -- into that pile of voter by hook or by crook. She wasn't willing to check them out herself, and also conspired to prevent the local boards from knocking on doors and placing follow-up calls, too.

UPDATE: Young Obama cultists signing up to vote in whatever swing state The One needs them to -- even having no connection to the state whatsoever. Apart from an in-state friend willing to claim, Oh, sure, all 50 of you live in my hovel.

There's a goddamned website facilitating this fraud -- telling you who is willing to claim you live in their house, and which states you should be fraudulently signing up to vote in.

FBI? Hello? FBI?

Posted by: Ace at 02:04 PM | Comments (265)
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Hot Air's had this up for a while. I just saw it.

He only figuratively voted "present." What he did was refuse to cast a vote to stop debate, so that a vote on the merits of the reform bill could be had.

Finally, on the matter of deregulation and the financial crisis, Sen. Obama should consider his own complicity in the failure of Congress to adopt legislation that might have prevented the subprime meltdown.

In the summer of 2005, a bill emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate. This was a time for the leadership Sen. Obama says he can offer, but neither he nor any other Democrat stepped forward.

Instead, by his own account, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing; if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending — but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama’s past: voting present.

I have asked the McCain campaign repeatedly if they have any evidence of this alleged letter. If Obama wrote such a letter, why is he unable or unwilling to produce it?

The time for games is over. It is time for confrontation.

I'm sorry, I'm going to say it:

Senator McCain, either you want to win this election or you don't.

Your actions in the debate tonight will tell me which.

If you do not pin Obama's ears back on this winning issue, I personally write you off and dedicate all of my efforts to Senators and Congressmen.

I will not support someone determined to "lose honorably."

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (94)
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How do they get away with this?

This is the most obvious and blatant example of partisanship there is. But no one is willing to even raise the issue.

Thanks to Manuel, the Rat. (Not really a rat. Fawlty Towers episode.)

Posted by: Ace at 01:14 PM | Comments (36)
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Neat little over-the-top semi-parody video.

I link mainly just to keep this soundbite alive-- it's a killer.

Well, not a killer on its own. Thanks to the Democrats blaming our woes on capitalism, and McCain doing not much at all to put the blame on the socialist policies of Fannie and hard left radical intimidation tactics of ACORN, the country is in the mood for a little socialism.

But link this to the Fannie subprime mess and the soft socialist Democrats' building off the bomb: Could work.

It was socialistic spread-the-wealth policies that got us into this mess. The government -- meaning you -- subsidized these high-risk loans. This superheated the housing market into a bubble until it burst, crashing the economy. And now you are on the hook for all of these awful loans, because the soft socialists in the Democrat party wanted to "spread the wealth around." The wealth of houses people couldn't afford.

This is the election.

This is the election.

This is the election.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (44)
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I wonder if that includes folks from Scranton, God love 'em?

Anyway, here is what unindicted Abscam co-conspirator and sleazy slanderer of the United States Marines, Jack "Okinawa" Murtha, has to say about the citizens of his state.

Mr. Murtha said it has taken time for the state's voters embrace a black presidential candidate.

"There's no question Western Pennsylvania is a racist area," said Mr. Murtha, whose district stretches from Johnstown to Washington County. "The older population is more hesitant."

Now you may be wondering who specifically, Mr. Murtha regards as racists. I mean, casting all of Western Pennsylvania as racist is pretty broad. I wonder if he can elaborate on his observation?

Mr. Murtha said groups he deals with regularly, such as military veterans and senior citizens, have come around to supporting Mr. Obama in the past three months. He credited Mr. Obama with being the most organized candidate he has ever seen.

Military Veterans and Senior Citizens.

Which, come to think of it, are both groups to which Rep. Murtha belongs!

Moral of this story?

Jack Murtha is a fuckin' racist. By his own admission.

Posted by: Jack M. at 12:00 PM | Comments (92)
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But for very different reasons.

Iranian leaders tout world financial crisis as evidence of the collapse of capitalism while noting communism already had it's comeuppance.

Let's see. Communism = gone. Capitalism = going.

Whatever could they think would be the one true replacement?

Iranian leaders say the world financial crisis indicates the end of capitalism, the failure of liberal democracy and divine punishment -- marking the superiority of the Islamic republic's political model.

"The school of Marxism has collapsed and the sound of the West's cracking liberal democracy is now being heard," supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday, recalling the fate of the Soviet Union.

Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is backed by Khamenei, said on Tuesday that "it is the end of capitalism."

That's not quite the same story offered up by Hugo the Large.

Guess this means Iran won't be invited to join the new Russo-Venezuelan Oil Bank thingy.

[story via Hot Air headlines]

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:50 AM | Comments (16)
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I don't even bother telling them this anymore.

They know. They just don't care.

I cannot explain to you how maddening this is.

Oh, wait, I don't have to -- you know.

Posted by: Ace at 11:11 AM | Comments (139)
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Now, look: I'm an open-minded guy, but I must insist that my politicians at least respect the sanctity of the politician-mistress relationship.

You just can't trust a guy who would cheat on his paid mistress. No honor.

And of course... GUESS! THAT! PARTY! All it takes is the excitement of a sex scandal for the media to suddenly forget what party Tim Mahoney belongs to.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (43)
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Vid below. From Hot Air, which has the transcript if you prefer that.

As ACORN says-- fraudulent voting registrations are "not the point."

The point is... empowerment of the dead or Mickey Mouse or something. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (47)
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I pretty much believe them. It always seemed dodgy.

See? I don't link every goofy report that floats over my transom.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (55)
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